New document from UN: Future trends in geospatial information management: the five- to 10-year visionDirections MagazineThere's a new document from the UN titled, "Future trends in geospatial information management: the five to ten year vision." The document was published by Ordnance Survey at the request of the Secretariat for the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management. The lead authors are John Carpenter and Jevon Snell, Ordnance Survey. It was commissioned in October 2011 and just came out in a first edition this month.

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GeoAlberta 2013: Where GEO mattersGITAIn September 2013, hundreds of Geomatics professionals will gather in Edmonton, Alberta, to network, share and learn! There are many ways to participate: Present a paper, conduct a workshop, exhibit at the tradeshow, sponsor, submit a map/app, volunteer or simply attend!

Don't miss out on the exciting theme for GeoAlberta 2013:

Geomatics: The art, science and technologies that use an integrated approach of measurement, analysis, management, storage and display of the descriptions and location of Earth-based data.

GITA webinar presentation live for viewingGITAThe "USGS 3DEP Presentation," given July 23, is now available for viewing through the GITA website Past Webinar page. Also available is the companion, "The 3D Elevation Program Plan — June 18, 2013, DRAFT Ver. 0.91," for which Larry Sugarbaker is asking for review and comments. Send to: lsugarbaker@usgs.gov.

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Future GITA webinar ideasGITAHave a topic you think others in the nation's geospatial community would like to know about? Send it to president@gita.org, and it will be on its way to being given formal consideration by the GITA Education Committee.

Just how critical is your infrastructure?GeoconnexionPublic utility networks are "important," because they deliver essential services, but they only become "critical" when we consider what might happen if they were compromised. There are lessons to be learned from those who already have experience of testing and derisking critical networks, according to Tim Cruddas.

Ideas to bolster power grid run up against the system's many ownersThe New York TimesBill Richardson often denigrated America's power transmission network as a "third-world grid" when he was President Bill Clinton's energy secretary, but the more current description of it is "balkanized," with 500 separate owners. Marc L. Spitzer, a former member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said even that analogy was not harsh enough.

Dutch provinces save millions sharing and reusing GIS toolsDirections MagazineThe 12 Dutch provinces estimate that since 2009 they have saved 4.5 million euro by working together and by using open source software solutions for their Geographic Information Systems. The 12 are now looking to build communities around their open source tools.

Plan would give soldiers a common geospatial view of the battlefieldDefense NewsThe Army wants to give troops and the brass a common geospatial view of the battlefield, but as with other proposed military improvements these days, the timing for completing the geospatial vision is an open question because of budget pressures. If the vision becomes reality, a general looking at his Command Post of the Future battlefield display could see the same terrain and features as an intelligence analyst seated at a Distributed Common Ground System-Army compute.

Lessons in location privacy and TwitterGIS UserWould you post a tweet that read, "I'm going to be at XXX place on 4th Ave. in the corner table at 6:15 PM tonight?" ... I doubt you would; however, contests on Twitter are encouraging people to do exactly that! Privacy and social media seem to be on the minds of many; however, for the most part, nobody really seems to care or really be going to any effort to protect their privacy — perhaps to many it simply isn't a big concern.

Signal structures for satellite-based navigation: Past, present and futureInside GNSSAlthough satellite navigation signals and systems have been designed for more than 40 years, new signals and systems are still being developed. During that time, design concepts have been weighed, implemented or rejected, and improved. Some early concepts — postponed because of impracticality at the time — have been revisited and adopted.

Brobst: Big-data treasure depends on where you dig for itZDNetOrganizations will find great new value in combining non-transactional data sets with transactional analysis — but must build scalable big-data storage systems rather than assuming that fast but expensive system memory will keep up with exploding data volumes, Teradata chief technology officer Stephen Brobst has warned.

Are we there yet? Biggest-ever energy storage trial launchesSmart Grid NewsMany (most?) electric power utilities just don't believe that energy storage is economically viable. Hence the long, long, long list of energy storage pilots and demos. Despite the hundreds of trials we've seen already, utilities never seem to be quite satisfied. Yes, it worked for that small pilot — but could it scale for my application? Perhaps this latest trial will answer the scale question once and for all, given that it's the largest ever in Europe.